Live data from Hacker News

Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

english.elpais.com

221–230 of 235 posts

Re: Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

#221
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing you mean the bison. (At least that's what Belovezhskaya Pushcha is known for, other than being the largest area of primeval forest in Europe.)

Buffalo and Bison are often interchangeable in American English. I know in Polish, "żubr", which is the European Bison, is often translated as buffalo and the American Bison is known as "bizon" which is understandably translated as bison. I would not be surprised if Belarusian was similar.

In Belarusian it's indeed "амерыканскі бізон" and "еўрапейскі зубр" (American bison and European zubr). In everyday speech these are shortened to "bison" and "zubr".

And buffalo (like African and water) is "буйвал".

I had no idea American English used "buffalo" and "bison" interchangeably.

Learn something every day. :)

Re: Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

#223
post #56

>Several years ago, 80 bison were reintroduced two centuries after their disappearance from these territories... I had no idea there were bison in Europe. The provided hyperlink leads to an article about bison being reintroduced in Mexico. Here is an appropriate article about bison being rewilded in the Southern Carpathians: https://rewildingeurope.com/blog/free-roaming-bison-populati... .

"Bison" is an European word (with several variants like "Wisent"), so it makes sense that originally it was the name of an European animal. It became applied to the American bison when the American colonists have encountered an animal similar to the one known by them in Europe.

The European bison is a distinct species from the American bison. In the more distant past bisons were widespread all over the Northern Eurasia and Northern America. They have been preferentially hunted everywhere, so their populations have dwindled and fragmented, becoming isolated, then they have become differentiated.

The European bison is somewhat smaller (because it had been mainly a forest animal) and it had become completely extinct in the wild a century ago.

Fortunately, there were enough captive, which have been bred and then reintroduced in the wild in some of their former territories, e.g. in Poland and Romania.

Re: Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

#224
post #56

>Several years ago, 80 bison were reintroduced two centuries after their disappearance from these territories... I had no idea there were bison in Europe. The provided hyperlink leads to an article about bison being reintroduced in Mexico. Here is an appropriate article about bison being rewilded in the Southern Carpathians: https://rewildingeurope.com/blog/free-roaming-bison-populati... .

It's another species, wisent, zubr, zimbru:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_bison

Re: Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

#225
post #184
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you can stop your sentence after the third word. (source: am Romanian)

I have some Romanian colleagues and they're all quite patriotic and often talk about how great Romania is.

That's universal. You don't trash your homeland to foreigners, only to fellow countrymen.

Re: Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve read about them after getting introduced to: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Żubrówka

I am of the firm belief that this drink, mixed with apple juice, should be marked as Unesco world heritage already.

Apple Pie Vodka is the best... so many hangovers!

Re: Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

#227
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Romania has more than 2 persons killed each year and many more injured. "Between 2016 and 2021, there were 154 bear attacks on humans, resulting in 158 injuries and 14 deaths" https://www.politico.eu/article/romania-bear-attacks-on-huma...

>Romania has more than 2 persons killed each year and many more injured. Statistics can be misleading without context. Especially when you see dumbfucks in Romania film themselves pulling over and get out of their cars so they can get close to bears to feed them biscuits and pet them as if they're stray cats/dogs. How can you blame the bears then? At that point such deaths are just natural selection at work. At least…

"At least in the past when we were cavemen, some member of the tribe would get mauled by a wild animal and the rest of the tribe would take note not to fuck around with those animals"

Yes they learned, but also most tribes would have taken pride in hunting that animal down. At least that was (and is) the case with indigenous tribes where we have detail knowldege. So the animals learned to stay away from the humans (to some extent).

But yes, we advanced a little bit, so we do have other options. The finns seem to do way better in this regard, than rumania. About the reasons why they do better, I lack detail knowledge.

"Especially when you see dumbfucks in Romania film themselves pulling over and get out of their cars so they can get close to bears to feed them biscuits and pet them as if they're stray cats/dogs"

But if this behavior is widespread, then yeah, this would be certainly a reason. And stray dogs can be quite dangerous as well btw.

Re: Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

#228
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very naive understanding of how charities work. You don't donate to a charity, you donate to your charity. Now, obviously your charity still needs to act as a charity so that money can't go back in your pocket but there are plenty of things the charity might spend it on that are in your financial interest and because you founded it, you likely have sufficient influence over it to make that happen even if you…

> there are plenty of things the charity might spend it on that are in your financial interest How do you think Carnegie's libraries across the country benefited Carnegie financially?

The goodwill he garnered probably shielded him from costly scrutiny of his less savory business practices, for one.

Re: Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

#229
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are more bears than the land can sustain. Go to any tourist (or non tourist) spot in the mountains and they'll come down and steal from your garbage in town . Look up Brasov. It's a reasonably large touristic town and it regularly gets bears at the periphery.

I don't know much about the particular situation, but isn't it likely that is just caused from human settlements expanding?

And habitat destruction. Romania _had_ a lot of forests.

Re: Group buys up large tracts of land in Romania to create 'European Yellowstone'

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are plenty of things the charity might spend it on that are in your financial interest How do you think Carnegie's libraries across the country benefited Carnegie financially?

The goodwill he garnered probably shielded him from costly scrutiny of his less savory business practices, for one.

I.e. the presumption of guilt.
Post reply on HN